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US 6,446,199 B1Granted
Disk drive incompatible firmware recovery
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsSteven Michael Howe, Jack Charles Kruger
Life of this patent
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AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsSteven Michael Howe, Jack Charles Kruger
Estimating the term…
In a disk type data storage device wherein the firmware used to control the device is partitioned with a first portion stored in the control circuitry and a second portion stored in the reserved area of the disk surface, the replacement of one of the portions in the field may cause the drive to have different levels or releases of firmware that will not function together. This disables the drive until diagnosed and connected. The structure disclosed includes identifiers associated with the firmware portions and the provision of a copy of the firmware first portion as well as the firmware second portion on the disk. The firmware first portion on the disk is normally never accessed and is a version compatible with the firmware second portion on the disk. During the power up sequence, the identifiers are checked for compatibility and the sequence normally continues. In the event that a portion of the firmware has been replaced and a finding of incompatibility occurs, the ROM, first portion of firmware (stored in electrically erasable, electrically programmable read only memory) in the control circuitry is erased and replaced by the firmware first portion stored on the disk. The firmware portions are thereupon compatible and drive operation continues without user intervention or awareness of the problem except for a one time, modest lengthening of the power on sequence.
In a disk drive data storage device wherein firmware used to control drive operation is paritioned into a first portion stored in the controller electronics that is subject to replacement independent of the head-disk assembly (HDA) and a second portion, which must be compatible with said first portion, stored on the disk media with portions thereof swapped into and out of volatile random access memory (RAM) as required during drive operation, the improvement comprising:
A disk drive data storage device comprising:
In a rigid disk data storage device having a disk assembly that is rotated during the read and write operations and including control firmware that has a first partition residing in erasable, programmable read only memory (EEPROM) outside the disk enclosure a second partition stored on the disk surface, and a copy of a first partition, compatible with said second partition, also stored on said disk surface, an incompatible firmware recovery method invoked as a part of the start sequence comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.